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This book provides authoritative and up-to-date research for anyone interested in the study of international environmental politics. It demonstrates how the field of international environmental politics has evolved and identifies key questions, topics and approaches to guide future research.

Transnational Environmental Policy analyses a surprising success story in the field of international environmental policy making: the threat to the ozone layer posed by industrial chemicals, and how it has been averted. The book also raises the more general question about the problem-solving capacities of industrialised countries and the world society as a whole. Reiner Grundmann investigates the regulations which have been put in place at an international level, and how the process evolved over twenty years in the US and Germany.

How do international environmental standards come into being? One important way, as Elizabeth DeSombre shows in this book, is through the internationalization of regulations that one or more countries have undertaken domestically. Domestic environmental regulation, DeSombre argues, can create an incentive for environmentalists and industry--previously at odds with each other--to work together to shape international environmental policy. For environmentalists, international regulation offers greater protection of a resource. For industry, internationalization prevents unregulated foreign industries from operating at a competitive advantage. Domestic forces acting together often push for the threat or imposition of economic restrictions on countries resisting regulation. DeSombre examines this dynamic primarily from the perspective of United States environmental policy. Looking at major regulations on endangered species, air pollution, and fisheries conservation, she determines which ones the United States has attempted to internationalize and how successful the attempts have been. She underlines the importance of regulated industries in the creation of international environmental policy and presents evidence that power and threat play a significant role in the adoption of international regulations, despite the perception of international environmental politics as an arena of friendly interaction over mutual interests. She also discusses the origins of international cooperation, the regulatory effects of free trade, the usefulness of economic sanctions, and the interaction between domestic and international politics. Thus the book has theoretical implications for the fields of environmental politics and policy, international diplomacy, and international political economy.

Governments' desire to ameliorate environmental problems may conflict with other goals. Policy levels which balance different objectives can be altered by policy changes in other countries. A decrease in the importance of the pollution problem, or an increase in its global extent, increase the likelihood that tighter environmental regulations in one region induce laxer policies elsewhere. The transboundary character and the importance of environmental externalities also affect the amount of cooperation needed to improve members' welfare in a coalition. More global pollution problems require a larger coalition. However, the critical coalition size may be larger or smaller for more severe problems.

In this article, I discuss trust and its manifestations in international environmental cooperation. A lack of trust in the capacity of states and other actors to tackle environmental issues leads to international environmental insecurity. Awareness of such incapacities is widespread and is increasing in `modern risk societies'. Trust is often understood as the rational and intentional efforts of parties to treat one another as trustworthy counterparts and to ignore discretion, but it is also habitual. Trust is based on the socialization of agents into certain practices. The importance of trust and its different dimensions emerged as the central theme in a study of international environmental cooperation in northwestern Russia. Russian and Nordic participants were interviewed in the winter 2003—2004 and spring 2006 with the aim of gathering their views and experiences on cooperation. The interviewees were mainly representatives of regional and national administrations and non-governmental organizations. In addition, in the autumn of 2004 and again in the autumn of 2006, a questionnaire was sent to project managers working in northwestern Russia. The article highlights the importance of the institutional dimension of trust in terms of trust in abstract expertise and monetary systems as well as trust in the representatives of such systems. Both trust and the lack of trust remain important issues, especially in regard to the Russian capacity to develop domestic environmental policies and to improve the status of Russia in international environmental cooperation.

"Wie wird im deutschen Bundeshaushalt über die relative Bedeutung von internationaler Zusammenarbeit entschieden und welche Priorität wird dabei den entsprechenden Ausgaben beigemessen? Diese Fragen werden anhand der Analyse zweier Politikfelder untersucht, die in der deutschen internationalen Zusammenarbeit eine wichtige Rolle spielen: dem Kampf gegen den internationalen Terrorismus in Afghanistan und der globalen Umweltpolitik. Das erste Beispiel ist in der deutschen internationalen Zusammenarbeit relativ neu, da die Gesetzgebung der Nachkriegszeit den Einsatz von deutschem Militär außerhalb des NATO-Territoriums verbot. Dies änderte sich erst 1990 mit der deutschen Einheit und Souveränität und durch die neuen außen- und sicherheitspolitischen Herausforderungen, die sich durch den Bürgerkrieg im ehemaligen Jugoslawien ergaben. Das zweite Beispiel - die globale Umweltpolitik - ist im Gegensatz dazu ein Politikfeld, in dem Deutschland sehr früh aktiv geworden ist. In beiden Politikfeldern werden einige der allgemeinen neuen Trends in der Finanzierung von internationaler Zusammenarbeit sichtbar, insbesondere der Trend vom Gerechtigkeits- zum Effizienzprinzip beim Einsatz öffentlicher Mittel, der Trend von der Länder- zur Themenorientierung und der Trend zur zunehmenden Mobilisierung privater statt öffentlicher Mittel. Die Analyse der Einführung dieser Veränderungen und der Hürden, auf die sie stieß, vermittelt Einsichten in die Schwierigkeiten der Politikharmonisierung und der Einführung entsprechender Verfahren für die Erstellung von Haushalten, Gesetzen und Regeln." (Textauszug)